Nocturnes

(UK)

(US)

Nocturnes is a collection of supernatural novellas and stories which echoes the work of some of the masters of the genreM.R. James, Ray Bradbury, Stephen Kingwhile never losing the distinctive voice of the stories' creator, John Connolly. Here are lost lovers and missing children, predatory demons and vengeful ghosts. In the novella 'The Cancer Cowboy Rides,' a New Hampshire town is infected by the arrival of a tormented stranger; in 'Some Children Wander by Mistake,' a sinister circus returns to reap the fruits of seeds sown many years before; in 'The New Daughter,' a father comes to suspect that a burial mound on his land hides something very ancient, and very much alive; and in 'The Underbury Witches,' a pair of London detectives find themselves battling a particularly female evil in a town culled of its menfolk.

Finally, private detective Charlie Parker returns in the long novella, 'The Reflecting Eye.' The photograph of an unknown girl turns up in the mail box of an abandoned house once occupied by an infamous killer, forcing Parker to confront the possibility that the house of John Grady is not as empty as it appears, and that something has been waiting in the darkness for its chance to kill again...

Praise

"Connolly is an excellent storyteller, who combines his own unique voice with a wonderful sense of humour; his one-liners will have the reader laughing long after the book has been closed. These supernatural tales are beautifully written, with not a single bad story among them." —Chapter and Verse Magazine

"All in all, an inventive, intriguing collection." —The Irish Times

"Sometimes we read horror stories for a glimpse of the strange, a glimmer of the uncanny. And sometimes we just want to hear the author go boo. Of the two, it's easier to say boo. John Connolly is rather good at it." —The Herald (Glasgow)

"Children go missing, lovers are lost, creatures emerge from below the ground and demons lurk in the shadows as Connolly, clearly having the time of his life, does his best to scare the wits out of his readers." —Gold Coast Bulletin (Australia)

"With folk tales including monsters that linger in your mind, leaving you locking your doors and windows tightly, and the unsettling tales that leave you questioning your perception of the people and the world around you, Nocturnes is delightfully discomfiting.... " —Lincolnshire Echo

"Spookier than mere pastiche, meatier than pure pulp, Nocturnes hits exactly the right note in reinventing the golden age of ghost stories." —The Independent Online